Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Good work, Ohio

"The Ohio Board of Education voted 11 to 4 Tuesday to toss out a mandate that10th-grade biology classes include critical analysis of evolution and anaccompanying model lesson plan, dealing the intelligent design movement itssecond serious defeat in two months."

The policy that was overturned did not include explicit language about teaching intelligent design (nor did it mention bacterial flagellum, blood clotting cascades or sudden emergence - oh, those were the days...), but the "critical analysis" language has been described as "design in disguise."

The policy change came as an emergency motion, submitted by Board Member Martha W. Wise who chategorized the original lesson as "bad news" and told the board that "it is deeply unfair to the children of this state to mislead them about the nature of science." Go Martha.

Panda's Thumb has the full text of the motion up, along with the commentary that "Ohio is no longer on the Discovery Institute's list of favorite states for pilgrimages."